Meanwhile, we should by now all know about Trump's overseas conflicts of interests. Today, the Wall Street Journal published an investigation into his domestic ones:

Quote

Wells Fargo & Co., for example, runs at least five mutual funds that own portions of Trump businessesí securitized debt, according to an analysis of mutual-fund data conducted by Morningstar Inc. for the Journal.

The bank also is a trustee or administrator for pools of securitized loans that include $282 million of loans to Mr. Trump. And Wells acts as a special servicer for $950 million of loans to a property that one of Mr. Trumpís companies partly owns, according to securities and property filings.

Wells Fargo is currently facing scrutiny from federal regulators surrounding its fraudulent sales practices and other issues. Once he takes office, Mr. Trump will appoint the heads of many of the regulators that police the bank.

Over at The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf commented that since many of these types of business debts don't have to be disclosed,

"...it is easy to imagine Trump covertly benefitting or punishing one of his creditors (depending on his analysis of whatís preferable). He neednít be in a position to directly appoint regulators to do so. He often posts tweets that laud or vilify corporations with huge consequences for their stockholders. How many corporate leaders would quietly forgive debt if the stock of their biggest competitor would be tanked, rather than their own?"

We've already seen companies' stock prices flutter on a tweet from Trump. How much profit did that make for day traders? What might they offer Trump in exchange for another tweet?

To those of you going to dismiss the WSJ as the usual liberal media, they are the exact opposite. They are the newspaper of and for Big Business. "Wall Street" is right there in their name. So when they are worried about Trump, you should be, too......

I also heared Deutsche Bank was one of the banks still giving money to Trumpel the last years. Giving all their difficulties in the US since the subprime crisis it will be pretty interesting how they are doing the next years.

Meanwhile, we should by now all know about Trump's overseas conflicts of interests. Today, the Wall Street Journal published an investigation into his domestic ones:

Quote

Wells Fargo & Co., for example, runs at least five mutual funds that own portions of Trump businessesí securitized debt, according to an analysis of mutual-fund data conducted by Morningstar Inc. for the Journal.

The bank also is a trustee or administrator for pools of securitized loans that include $282 million of loans to Mr. Trump. And Wells acts as a special servicer for $950 million of loans to a property that one of Mr. Trumpís companies partly owns, according to securities and property filings.

Wells Fargo is currently facing scrutiny from federal regulators surrounding its fraudulent sales practices and other issues. Once he takes office, Mr. Trump will appoint the heads of many of the regulators that police the bank.

Over at The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf commented that since many of these types of business debts don't have to be disclosed,

"...it is easy to imagine Trump covertly benefitting or punishing one of his creditors (depending on his analysis of whatís preferable). He neednít be in a position to directly appoint regulators to do so. He often posts tweets that laud or vilify corporations with huge consequences for their stockholders. How many corporate leaders would quietly forgive debt if the stock of their biggest competitor would be tanked, rather than their own?"

We've already seen companies' stock prices flutter on a tweet from Trump. How much profit did that make for day traders? What might they offer Trump in exchange for another tweet?

To those of you going to dismiss the WSJ as the usual liberal media, they are the exact opposite. They are the newspaper of and for Big Business. "Wall Street" is right there in their name. So when they are worried about Trump, you should be, too......

Is it true that Trumpels co-conspirators should be passing the senate without completed interrogation, even not proper interrogations?Where are the checks and balances? Are these checks and balances already disestabished / forbidden by Trumpel's forced bullying tweets?

The House GOP has reactivated the "Holman Rule", a 140-year-old rule that essentially allows any Congressman to propose and amendment to any appropriations bill that will eliminate a single government position or cut the salary of any position to $1.

Couple that with the Transition Team's questionnaire to the Department of Energy asking for the names of any department employees or contractors who attended meetings or conferences on climate change....

At the upper levels of the federal government, it has been customary for all significant appointees to, after the election, submit their resignations - effective noon on Inauguration Day - to the outgoing president. It has also been customary for the incoming president to allow them to stay on as long as it takes for their replacement to be nominated, vetted, approved, and be ready to take over. One Bush appointee managed to stay on well into Obama's second term. It all helps make for a smooth transition at all the levels of the federal government.

Our incoming president can't even do that right.

He issued a blanket edict that all ambassadors appointed by Obama have their desks cleaned out and be out of the embassies by noon on Inauguration Day. (link) Not only does this mean the ambassador's families have to scramble for things like visas and other living arrangements (they may have young ones in school there), but it also makes foreign governments nervous as they have no idea who they will be working with next. The Transition Team is so far behind on its nominations and vetting, that some posts could be vacant for months.

The embassies won't close, their staffs will stay on, and they'll be run by the charges d'affairs. But that's only good for housekeeping and routine duties. If some crisis comes up.....

He's even done it on the domestic side. The head of the National Nuclear Safety Administration and his deputy were just told to clean out their desks by January 20. The NNSA, for those of you - and Rick Perry, who wants to head the cabinet department that contains it - who need a quick refresher, is the agency responsible for basically making sure our nuclear weapons go off when we need them to - and never when we don't. Like ambassadorships and other appointed posts, they require vetting and Senate confirmation. And the Transition Team hasn't even gotten around to nominating people yet.

Again, the NNSA's maintenance and housekeeping roles will continue. But there are major things that you need an agency head for. Like budget negotiations, and launching new programs.

The impression that all of this gives one is that if you work for the federal government, you have your job solely at the whim of the GOP and Dear Leader.

That's not going to be very good for morale..... Or help you when you are looking for people to fill all those newly vacant positions......

This has been debunked. Make sure you shame Buzzfeed like you did Brietbart. And shame CNN as well.

Next!

Well, I don't see anything that states there was truth in the report. Buzzfeed published a document it had received giving details of rumors that had been swirling around Trump since last October (at least), and in the article linked to they mention right in the lead paragraph that "The allegations are unverified, and the report contains errors"; the intelligence community had been on the case for a while and concluded that the source of the allegations was a credible one, so they felt it was important enough to discuss in their briefing of Trump; CNN reported on the briefing and the Buzzfeed story, while still noting that the allegations had not yet been proven.

I don't see anything in there that needs to be debunked, or anything worthy of condemning CNN or Buzzfeed for.

The thing that troubles me most from what I've read on the brouhaha is that Trump's first reaction was NOT to deny the allegations, but instead to parrot the official Russian line about them....... Interesting......

====

Anyway, to move on, as you suggested, I'd like to reply to moobs' comment on Obama's legacy.

Over at PleaseCutTheCrap.com, the author has compiled a list of 400 - with links - accomplishments of President Obama.

Obviously, I can't repost them all here. But I can excerpt them. Since moobs offered eleven "accomplishments", I will post the eleventh in each of the sections (if there aren't 11 in the section, I'll go with the one in the middle) to make it random enough.

Changed the Culture of the Executive Branch: Held the first-ever first online town hall from the White House, and took questions from the public. http://bit.ly/2atEVct

Staved Off a Bush Depression, Improved the Economy: Signed the "Helping Families Save Their Homes Act", which helped millions of Americans avoid preventable foreclosures and provided $2.2 billion to combat homelessness and stabilize the housing market. http://bit.ly/2aiFCbi

Specific Examples of Economic Improvement: Since February 2010, when unemployment peaked, 15.6 million non-farm private sector jobs have been created. http://1.usa.gov/1Xhizho

Addressed Wrongdoing in the Financial Sector: Created and implemented rules so banks can no longer use depositorsí money to invest in derivatives and other high-risk financial instruments that work against depositorsí interests. http://bit.ly/fnTayj

Improved Conditions for Consumers and Small Businesses: Took steps to improve minority access to capital. http://bit.ly/f9xVE7

Addressed Civil Rights and Equality: Changed fair housing rules to make more affordable housing available to more people. http://cnn.it/1JcR3qB

Improved Workersí Rights: Made it illegal for federal contractors with more than $1 million in contracts to force employees into arbitration in workplace discrimination accusations. http://1.usa.gov/V54qY3

Protected the Rights of LGBT People: Issued a Presidential Memorandum reaffirming the rights of gay couples to make medical decisions for each other. http://1.usa.gov/aUueGT

Improved Conditions for Women: Signed an Executive Order pledging support for efforts to end the global problem of violence against women and girls. http://1.usa.gov/MHTRVU

Addressed Criminal Justice Failings and the Gun Culture: Set up a task force to figure out what other measures can be taken to limit gun violence in the wake of Congressional inaction. http://1.usa.gov/1QjYMGJ

Improved Treatment of Soldiers and Veterans: Got Syria to dismantle its chemical weapons without military firing a single shot or dropping a single bomb. http://nyti.ms/1lVEkU7

Improved Americaís Reputation Around the World: Refused to give Israel the green light to attack Iran over their possible nuclear program. http://bit.ly/xVmSZK

Changed US Approach to "Defense" and National Security: Negotiated and signed a nuclear nonproliferation treaty with India. http://1.usa.gov/aHp0Cn

Restored the Adult View on Science and Technology: Through the Connect America Fund, pushed through and received FCC approval for a move of $8 billion in subsidies away from telephone landlines to assist lower-income rural families in accessing broadband. http://lat.ms/vhRUEshttp://bit.ly/129V3SY

Improved Our Health and Safety: Through ACA, allowed children to be covered under their parentsí policy until they turned 26. http://nyti.ms/fNB26V

Addressed the Environment While Dealing with Energy Needs: Created tax write-offs for purchases of hybrid and electric vehicles. http://bit.ly/glCukV

Thereís a Lot More!: Expanded trade agreements to include stricter labor and environmental agreements in trade pacts like NAFTA. http://bit.ly/etznpY

You can quibble and nitpick with a lot of them, but that still leaves quite an impressive list. And one must also add that in his eight years in office, there was not even a whisper of a hint of a suggestion of the possibility that there might actually be a scandal in the White House.

This has been debunked. Make sure you shame Buzzfeed like you did Brietbart. And shame CNN as well.

Next!

Debunked by whom? Mr. Trumpel and Putin, personally? Wow, how trustworthy these two are. Both notorious liars. I give a shit on what they say. Mr. Trump goes chaotic and erratic what he says. He does say everything about a topic if it suits him. And Putin has a complete strategy running a nation on lies - everything. Let's wait what the other media find out. Then we can decide.

And as rtpoe said it is just a report published. If it would have been e-mails on Wikileaks from Mr. Clintion who where taken out of context everything would be fine - altright?

Well, I don't see anything that states there was truth in the report. Buzzfeed published a document it had received giving details of rumors that had been swirling around Trump since last October (at least), and in the article linked to they mention right in the lead paragraph that "The allegations are unverified, and the report contains errors"; the intelligence community had been on the case for a while and concluded that the source of the allegations was a credible one, so they felt it was important enough to discuss in their briefing of Trump; CNN reported on the briefing and the Buzzfeed story, while still noting that the allegations had not yet been proven.

I don't see anything in there that needs to be debunked, or anything worthy of condemning CNN or Buzzfeed for.

Debunked by whom? Mr. Trumpel and Putin, personally? Wow, how trustworthy these two are. Both notorious liars. I give a shit on what they say. Mr. Trump goes chaotic and erratic what he says. He does say everything about a topic if it suits him. And Putin has a complete strategy running a nation on lies - everything. Let's wait what the other media find out. Then we can decide.

And as rtpoe said it is just a report published. If it would have been e-mails on Wikileaks from Mr. Clintion who where taken out of context everything would be fine - altright?

Sighhhh.

First of all, Wikileaks has a 100% accuracy record. And most of the emails were pretty self explanatory. Apart from the "spirit cooking" where people rely on the openly leftist blog Snopes to tell them how to think.

Second of all, fake news is fake news. Buzzfeed is a multi million dollar corporation and it published that bogus crap and passed it off as legitimate. And good old CNN picked it up and also ran with it. But as we are all aware of by now unless you are a completely stupid fucking moron:

CNN = fake news.

Everything that is being thrown at Trump is backfiring. Give it up already liberals.

__________

Anyway, I am still waiting for Barack Obama to invite the family of the victim of that Chicago kidd-napping to the White House. That same kidd-napping where CNN and MSM refused to call it a hate crime. Imagine if it were four white people who did that to a black person. Riots, protests, nonstop media coverage fanning the flames of racial division, blame Trump, Obama press conference....

You know, if Barack Obama had another daughter she would look like..... oh wait, nevermind.